From This Day On
by Miss Puppylove
Summary: The summer after Remus Lupin graduated from Hogwarts, he brought a stray dog home with him." In which Sirius and Remus do their best to explain things to Remus's father. (Slash)


Notes: This is, among other things, terribly fluffy. Frighteningly enough, that's really all I have to say about this fic; however, it is not _completely_ fluff, so I'll just let the fic speak for itself. As always on this account, if you don't like slash, or simply don't like Sirius and Remus in love with each other, feel free to turn back. The rest of you, enjoy.

Disclaimer: Remus and Sirius, et al., belong to JKR. I'm just playing with them for a while, and they shall be returned completely intact, none the worse for wear, and probably fairly happy.

From This Day On

The summer after Remus Lupin graduated from Hogwarts, he brought a stray dog home with him.

That was what it boiled down to, anyway. In reality, Remus was feeling a bit like a stray himself. He was returning to his father's house, the cottage on the Scottish moor where he had grown up, and he was bringing with him a stellar N.E.W.T.s score, excellent teacher recommendations, and absolutely no future at all. His three best friends in the world were leaving in a similar fashion, with a few marked differences – Peter's scores and recommendations were only average, James had a brilliantly glowing future to look forward to, and Sirius was not going home.

James had offered to let Sirius stay at his place again, and assured Sirius that his parents certainly wouldn't mind, but Sirius had politely declined, and shared a glance with Remus.

Sirius and Remus waved the others off at King's Cross; Peter went away with his mother, looking rather less than enthusiastic, and James, after saying his goodbyes, drifted conspicuously off towards Lily Evans. Sirius had a grin at the expense of his hapless friend, and then Augustus Lupin turned up in his battered old green car to take them both home.

"You're okay with me staying?" Sirius kept asking anxiously from the back seat of the car, which Remus might have found vaguely annoying, except that, as Sirius asked, he ran his thumb along Remus's knuckles, a comforting, hypnotic motion. Remus rather wondered if his father had noticed.

And Remus continued to wonder, all through the drive north, and when they stopped for lunch in Edinburgh. His fingers twined with Sirius's under the restaurant table, as they ate; an old, comfortable gesture, as they always did during meals in the Great Hall, or when they were doing their homework in the library. Remus sometimes marveled, at a little thing like this, the way they could hold hands and just carry on whatever they were doing; Remus's right hand in Sirius's left, always just like that, because Remus wrote with his left hand and Sirius with his right. And Remus wondered, rather, if his father noticed.

They arrived at the Lupins' cottage on the moor around dusk, the headlights of the old car sweeping twin beams of yellow light across the whitewashed walls of the house, and the purple flowers in the front yard, which were beginning to wilt in the summer heat. The first stars came out, cautious in the indigo sky around a crescent moon just beginning to wax, as Augustus helped levitate the boys' trunks into the darkened front hall. A sort of comfortable evening drowsiness hung in the still air, prompting them to leave the luggage where it sat and drift into the kitchen for some lemonade.

"So, boys," Augustus said, sipping his lemonade and peering at them over the rim of his glass, across the little round table. "What are the sleeping arrangements for this evening?"

Remus, who had not put any thought into this so far, was at a loss.

"Not a problem, is it?" Sirius said cheerfully, tilting his chair back on two legs. "I'll kip with Remus."

"It's a single bed," Remus supplied.

"Oh," said Sirius, and his chair came back down on four legs with a thump, but he did not revoke his previous words.

"There is a couch in the sitting room …" Augustus started.

"You can have my room if you like, Sirius," Remus put in quickly. "I don't mind taking the couch."

Sirius gave him a lopsided smile. Remus could read no reproach in his face – gods, was Sirius _ever_ disappointed in him? – but he knew what Sirius was thinking. _Just tell your dad and have done with, Moony_. "Or," said Sirius aloud, "I can grab a couple of cushions from that couch, and stay in your room too. All problems solved, eh?"

"Indeed," said Augustus, the faintest hint of a line between his brows as he glanced from one boy to the other. "Go ahead, then; start getting things ready, and Remus will be up in a moment."

"Sure," said Sirius, and bounded off.

Augustus turned to Remus, and raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

Remus stared at his own hands for a moment. "What do you want me to say?"

His father laughed rather helplessly. "If I may point this out, that particular question is probably the least helpful thing you could possibly say. This isn't about what _I_ want; if it was about what I wanted, your whole life would be very different."

He meant the wolf, Remus knew, and the complications thereof, but he also meant _this_, the part of Remus's life that was defined by _RemusandSirius_, and if being a werewolf made Remus's life difficult, this only added complications.

"I know," Remus said quickly, "but … you know I'm not stupid. I've thought about this."

Augustus regarded his son levelly. "Has he?"

Remus faltered. Not in so many words, no …

"I thought not," his father said, and sighed heavily.

"Dad," Remus said, and hesitated. Only a few seconds ago, he had claimed to have thought this through, but his best defense had nothing to do with logic. This, if nothing else, his father would understand. "I love him."

Augustus sighed again, and looked out the window at their little garden in the deepening twilight. "I know."

Remus stood. "Then I don't think there is anything else to say."

"Only one." Augustus turned back to his son, looking very serious. "Sirius sleeps on the floor, and you sleep on the bed."

Looking into his father's mild face, Remus winced inwardly. "All right."

"Thank you." Augustus smiled again, very slightly. "I'm not … forbidding this, Remus. I just don't want …"

"I know," Remus interrupted, because this was probably enough for them both to absorb in one evening, and he gave a faint smile that mirrored his father's, and turned away from the doorway to head upstairs.

Sirius was coming down them in a bounding clatter, but stopped short when he saw the expression on Remus's face. "Moony?"

Remus sighed, and shrugged, and gestured vaguely towards the kitchen. Comprehension crossed Sirius's face; he walked quietly down the remaining stairs, and, taking Remus's shoulders, pulled him into a warm, crushing hug. "I'll take care of that," he whispered. "You just gather up those last few cushions, eh?" Remus, pulling back, gave him a skeptical look, but nodded. Sirius's face broke into a grin. "Good boy, Moony." He swept back the stray hair that was falling into his eyes and strolled off into the kitchen.

Intrigued and a bit wary, Remus slid down the wall until he was sitting on the runner carpet with his back pressed against the faded wallpaper, and from there, in the darkened hallway, he listened.

"Ah. Hello, Sirius." His father; mild, polite, sounding much like Remus himself in a moment of distrust. Remus bit his lip.

"Hi," said Sirius's voice, sounding cheerful. There was the scrape of a chair across the floor, and then a thump, as Sirius, presumably, sat down in it. "Moony told you about us, did he?"

"Moony," Augustus repeated thoughtfully, ignoring the question entirely. "Well, at least I suppose you know that."

"Have since second year," Sirius's voice replied. "Surely he's told you that."

There was a pause. Then, "Yes," Augustus said slowly. "He has mentioned it." Another pause. "He talks about you."

Momentary silence in the kitchen.

"Remus looked a bit upset," Sirius said abruptly. "What did you tell him?"

"If you are fearing I threatened to disown him, or even that I told him he is wrong, put your mind at rest," Augustus replied. "I did nothing of the sort. I only …"

"Don't want another thing for him to worry about," Sirius supplied, in one of the flashes of insight that Remus sometimes blessed the other boy for when words failed him.

"Yes, exactly," Augustus agreed.

"So you don't approve, either."

"No," was the mild reply.

"Why not?" said Sirius, his voice harsher now. "He's _happy_."

"I know," Augustus acknowledged softly. "I only want him to remain so."

"Then you're not doing him any favors by being … cautious," Sirius said, his voice edging on anger. "It's his life, and he – he thinks on things. He's not like most kids. He _thinks_ on things before he does them, so if he's mad enough to want me, I'm not going to argue my good fortune. I'd do anything to make him happy."

Another silence, though Remus could hear Sirius's breathing, shaky.

"Even leave him?" Augustus asked softly.

"Yeah. Even that." Sirius paused, then said in a low voice, "I'd be terribly upset, though. I don't know why he – he'd choose me, of all people, but it's the best thing that's ever happened to me and if it makes _Remus_ happy too, that's the best thing of all."

Augustus sighed. "I …"

"Besides, he'd be in trouble no matter who he ended up with," Sirius interrupted, sounding slightly desperate. Remus strongly wished he could see the looks on both their faces, because he could not quite gauge the tone of this exchange. Sirius went on, "At least with me, we know what we're getting into. I understand as well as I can what it's like for him –"

"Is that well enough, though?" Remus's father put in, though he did not sound in the least accusatory, merely thoughtful.

"Better than anyone else does," Sirius said stoutly. "If that's good _enough_, I don't know. Only Remus does."

Now there was the longest pause yet. Remus tilted his head back so that it rested against the wall, and waited, breathing shallowly.

Finally, Augustus started saying, "What do you …"

Before he could even finish the question, Sirius's voice interrupted, sounding utterly decisive. "I love him."

Startled silence.

Sirius gave a barking laugh. "I don't even know if that was your question. Don't think it even matters. Quite honestly, I don't really know if any of it matters, what you think or don't think or what you approve of. Because, see, I love Remus, and the only reason I'm even sitting here at this table is because I know Remus likes you and values your opinion. If you really want him to be happy, please stop worrying and let him _live_. You've done it before; you sent him to Hogwarts, didn't you, even though he's a werewolf? This isn't _nearly_ so difficult by comparison." He stopped and took a shaky breath. "I love him, and I don't think there's any more to discuss."

Feeling unsteady, Remus pulled away from the wall and got to his feet. He was not entirely sure what he was going to do, though he had a sudden, half-ridiculous vision of Sirius telling all this to his father at wandpoint.

"Yes," Augustus said softly from the kitchen. "So you both say." Another pause. "I think Remus is in good hands, impetuous though they may be."

"Thank you," said Sirius rather stiffly. "Though Remus isn't anyone's."

Augustus laughed softly. "No, of course not. Sirius, tell me … shall you always think of me as a horrible old father who examined you at length for faults?"

"No thanks," Sirius replied, and Remus could hear the grin in his voice. "No one compares with my parents for that, anyway. And you're a bit too much like Remus to really dislike, horrifying though that may be."

"Yes, quite horrifying."

Remus heard them both stand, but didn't move; next moment, the kitchen was in darkness, and the dim hall was flooded with light as Augustus flicked on the light switch that illuminated the lamp on the landing above them. Remus blinked, his eyes adjusting, and smiled wryly at his father and Sirius. "Hello."

Augustus smiled, and squeezed his shoulder in passing. "Good night, Remus." At the foot of the stairs, he turned and gave them both a stern look. "I expect to have a quiet night's sleep, do you understand?"

"Yes sir," Sirius said, grinning.

Nodding to them both, Augustus went on up the stairs.

"Oh," Sirius breathed, slumping back against the wall in relief. And a moment later, "_oh_," again, as Remus pushed up against him and kissed him hard. "_Moony_." Half-laughing, Sirius freed himself a little from Remus's arms, and blinked at him. "Come on now, what I did wasn't _that_ great."

"No," Remus agreed, and kissed Sirius's collarbone, because the other boy wasn't being very cooperative. "I knew Dad would come around eventually; he's only worried."

"Then what's _this_ for?" Sirius asked breathlessly, squirming. "Your dad said we were supposed to be _quiet_!"

"Sorry," said Remus, grinning, but his hands drifted up Sirius's sides again and clasped around the other boy's back. "As to your question, _this_ –" He grinned at Sirius's sharp intake of breath – "is for that lovely, eloquent speech you managed to give. About you not deserving me, or some rubbish like that."

Sirius blushed slightly. "It's not an inferiority complex or anything, you know – _Stop that_!" He grabbed Remus's hands. "Mr. Moony, you are being horribly distracting."

"I'm thanking you for your unexpected humbleness," Remus said innocently. "Surely you don't _mind_ being distracted?"

"It's not that, it's –" Sirius started, and broke off with a gasp, his head falling back against the wall with a muffled thump.

"Now really, Sirius, my dad did tell us to be quiet," said Remus, laughing.

"You're _horrible_," Sirius asserted, recapturing Remus's straying hands. "Everyone is terribly misled about you; doing such things under your own father's nose, and here I'm just trying to explain that you're really quite wonderful, but you're too busy _thanking_ me to let me say it properly."

"There now, you've said it," Remus supplied. "And it is appreciated. Now may I thank you properly?"

"He said to be _quiet_ –"

"Mr. Padfoot, the Silencing Charm is your _friend_."

"You're horrible," Sirius said again, quite admiringly, and bounded upstairs.

The summer after Remus Lupin graduated from Hogwarts, he brought home stellar N.E.W.T.s scores, excellent teacher recommendations, and a stray dog.

And a future.


End file.
